Freestyle BMX on the Moon? No, Something Very Much Like It

Campo de Piedra is as remote as it is inhospitable. Tobias Wicke and Sebastian Keep were among the 10 competitors Red Bull invited to what had to be one of the coolest freestyle events ever. Although there were countless cans of Red Bull, there was but one oxygen mask. Odd, that. Photo: Rutger Pauw/Red Bull Content Pool

Video highlights of the action out on the pumice. Video: Red Bull Content Pool

Red Bull has kicked loose a bunch of pics and video from its insane Ramparanoia, an invitation-only freestyle and dirt-jumping competition held in one of the coolest places ever — a pumice field 13,000 feet above sea level.

The Austrian energy drink juggernaut threw around a few boatloads of cash flying Ben Hannon, Aaron Ross, Daniel Dhers and seven other top-level riders to Campo de Piedra Pomez. It’s a surreal yet beautiful pumice field formed half a million years ago near Catamarca, Argentina. The moonscape includes kickers, quarterpipes, transfers and other formations of all shapes and sizes, and no two are the same.

Just the place for a freestyle competition, no? We can’t help but think the world is a better place because Red Bull does crazy stuff like this.

Everyone spent several hours flying aboard a puddle jumper to the wildly remote, and terribly inhospitable, locale, and then had one day to acclimate. The competition, held the week of Dec. 8, began the next day.

Hennon won in a competition where riders judged each other’s moves. “I feel honored to have been invited to this competition and I am happy to have won,” he said in a statement. “The experience was amazing — without a doubt Red Bull Ramparanoia helps to increase the level of BMX even more, because we really had to outdo ourselves to ride in a place far away from everything.”

Hennon won, but everyone agreed Daniel Dhers had the best move of the event: a perfectly executed “360 tail whip to barspin.”

The riders included Hennon, Dhers, Ross, Tobias Wicke, Sebastian Keep, Ruben Alcantara, Kevin Kalkoff, Gary Young, Martin Postigo and Iñaki Mazza. We’d love to be able to tell you who’s in each picture and what kind of move they’re making, but Red Bull didn’t provide much in the way of captions. If anyone can tell us what’s what in the pics, let us know in the comments.

Update, 7:12 p.m. Eastern: Thanks to reader Ian White for some help with the captions!